A Science Prodigy's Comedic Sense

We laugh at strange things in my family - jokes that require unusual knowledge to appreciate. Perhaps the oddest thing about this joke making is that they are generally made by Ainan, 7.

Ainan sees humour where others see mystification. I haven't heard any accounts of other scientists finding science funny - but Ainan does. He sees comedy in the most unexpected of places - even in such a mundane concept as distance.

Yesterday he said to me: "There is a very funny distance, called an apc."

I didn't laugh - mainly because I didn't know what an "apc" was. I looked at him with that universal expression of blankness that asks, wordlessly: "Please explain."

He waited just a little to see if I understood and then, with a patience that I believe he has come to acquire, through his relations with others - who, no doubt, often don't understand his remarks, he continued.

"It is an attoparsec...which is about 3 centimetres."

Laughter exploded from me. I thought the idea was hilarious.

Let me explain a little so that you too can appreciate why a distance was funny. A parsec is a "parallax second" - that is 3.26 light years. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. This is a truly enormous distance. Light has a velocity of 300,000 Kilometres per SECOND. So, imagine travelling at the speed of light for 3.26 years. That is one parsec.

Now, what made this funny was that the inventor of this absurd unit of measurement had multiplied that unit by a very small number. "Atto" means 10 to the power of minus 18. This is a really really small number. So small that the famed "nano" of nanotech represents a number a billion times bigger than an "atto".

Atto is so small a number that when it is used to multiply a parsec, it reduces it to just 3 centimetre.

What I thought was funny was the idea of conjoining an astronomical distance and a very small number - to make an everyday, modest distance of three centimetres. Clearly, Ainan had thought it funny too, though if he had ever laughed at it, his laughter had already been done by the time he mentioned it to me.

So, there you are. Science can be funny - and there is even comedy in distance. At least, Ainan managed to find it.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

When "education" becomes abusive.

Very few people understand gifted children. Most teachers don't. Most school authorities don't. Most adults don't. Why is this? Simple: because they weren't gifted themselves. Only the gifted can understand, truly, what it means to be gifted.

This notion of how understanding is circumscribed by likeness of the self to other, also applies to the gradations of giftedness. It takes a moderately gifted person, to understand a moderately gifted other - a highly gifted person to understand a highly gifted other - and so on, all the way through exceptional gift and profound giftedness. Only someone truly of a particular level can truly understand the other, of the same kind.

Why do I say this? Well, I think that the perspective, and experiences of a gifted child have to be felt personally to be truly understood. The difference between living it and reading it is rather like the difference between reading The Lord of the Rings - and actually being Frodo Baggins in Middle Earth with a rather historic ring on your finger. It is impossible for us to truly understand what it is like to be Frodo Baggins - we can only see him as we imagine him to be, from the outside.

Thus is it with the gifted and the education they receive in schools. Those who educate them only know them from the outside - through reading and what they are told in their training. They do not truly know what it is like to be them.

So, it should be no surprise that education is often inappropriate for gifted children of all ilks. The more gifted the child, the more inappropriate it becomes. Yet, it is unlikely in the extreme that the education system will ever acknowledge the inappropriateness. Most education systems live under the delusion that they know best. I have actually heard a representative of our particular education system here, in Singapore, say, in essence, that she knew better than the parents how the child should be educated. Now, there is a delusion for you.

Education often proceeds by diktat: this is the way it is and all must accept it. It is rare for an education system to actually respond to the child's individual needs. Sometimes education systems talk about responding to a child's needs - while actually not doing so. Again, it is part of the incomprehension that comes with not being gifted - yet administering to the gifted.

Ainan is presently not receiving what he needs, educationally, from the system in Singapore. I very much doubt that he ever will be. This arises in the manner described above: those who can never understand, because they have never been like Ainan, make decisions about his needs, which they think should suffice. In our case, they refuse to listen to feedback that their intervention is insufficient: they think they know better.

What is the result? Lack of challenge, boredom, restlessness in the classroom, disenchantment with school, a loss of interest in learning - and general disengagement will all result, to varying degrees, if the child's true needs are not being met. In this situation, the result can only be described as abusive. It is abusive to keep a child in an unstimulating environment. It is abusive to deny a child true opportunities for growth. It is abusive to hold back a child's development all in the name of "we know better". Why do they "know better"? Because they are not bright enough to realize that they don't.

All over the world, hundreds of thousands of gifted children are being abused in this way, by the standardized classroom situation - by the undemanding education designed for those of average ability. As a result, most of the gifted children of the world end up as under-achievers - end-up as much less than they could be. Who is to blame for this? The educational system itself, for not recognizing that a gifted child has very different needs from an average child - and the more gifted they are, the more their needs will differ.

So, when is education abusive? Whenever a gifted child is involved and the individual child's particular academic needs are not met. In every case in which this occurs, the education received is a form of suffering. The education system is abusing the child. That is what education systems do to the best minds in their care. They abuse them with boredom, lack of challenge, frustration of their desires, and denial of opportunity.

In case you are the sort who doesn't care about an issue unless it affects you personally, consider this: if the growth of many gifted children is being stifled, in this way, all over the world, what do you think it does to the future intellectual health of human society? What does it do to the pace of technological and scientific change, to medical advances and cultural complexity and diversity? All these areas are hindered when the growth of those who become their human constituents are themselves hindered in their development. This issue of the abuse of our gifted children by inappropriate eduation affects us all: it is a universal problem that impacts the lives of all who presently live and are yet to live.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

It is never too late to live

Today, a searcher arrived on my site with the words: "Can an adult be a music prodigy when they were not one in childhood?"

Whenever I see a search, I can only imagine the context from which the searcher has come. In this case, it seems clear that the searcher is most probably one of musical gift - or knows someone who is - but has ignored that gift, or been unable to address it, until late in life.

I have one piece of advice for anyone with a latent gift: it is never too late to let it live. Don't procrastinate. Take the time to breath some life back into those old, sleeping talents and let them wake, once more. If one is born gifted, one remains gifted, in some way, to some degree, in whatever area the gift may be. One gifted in Art, will always find it easier to draw than one who has no such gift - the same with music, or sport, or any other human attribute. So, if you feel you have a sleeping gift - wake it up and start to use it, again. It will grow once more and flower into some semblance of what it should have been.

No doubt, an adult who does this is unlikely to reach the heights that would have been reached had the gift been expressed in childhood and nurtured through regular expression ever since. Such a person could make a mark indeed. However, that does not mean that late "blooming", is without the prospect of worthwhile achievement. Many are those who did not turn to their gifts until they reached retirement, having postponed them, amidst the everyday rush of life, until then. Mary Wesley, the novelist, for instance, was an old age pensioner before she first began to write professionally. What would she have written had she begun as a child? We will never know...but we know this: that the works that arrived so late were worth the wait - and so, too, can yours be.

Don't say to yourself, "If only...", instead just begin to do what you should always have done. In time, it will be as if you had always written/sung/painted/composed, so assured will your works seem. Old gifts never die - just people do - when they forget to let their gifts live.

As I read that searchers comment I felt touched by it, too, for reasons of my own. I, too, like many of you, have gifts to which I have not given full expression. Life always seems too busy to allow the fullness of oneself to be expressed - yet, do not allow yourself to be defeated. There are ways to begin the expression of that which lies within, once more. In time, the works that effort gives rise to may be worthy indeed.

Yes, of course, it is ideal to begin in childhood, the creative endeavours that fill a life - but that does not preclude the possibility of a late start. Many have done so and left an impressive body of work to the world. So don't regret - just begin.

Good luck.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Tiarnan shows his athleticism

On August 31st, Syahidah took Tiarnan to the playground. Like many nineteen month old kids, he rather likes this.

Tiarnan climbed up the stairs to the "castle" as I like to call it: the set of play features that are embedded in the ground of every playground in the world, that I have ever seen, (in one form or another). This particular one included a slide, which could be reached by quite a number of steps, up from the rest of the "castle".

Tiarnan duly climbed up each and every step until he got to the top of the slide - and then he launched himself into the air and slid all the way down. He thought this was great and as soon as his feet touched the ground he was up and running and back clambering up the stairs to make his way back up to the top of the slide again. Once there, again, he launched himself into the air - and so on.

Syahidah watched him do this with growing amazement, for what seemed at first an everyday matter, became ever more remarkable as Tiarnan's non-stop run-climb-slide-run-climb-slide...just went on and on.

He must have done this over twenty times - which is one hell of a lot of steps and considerable running - before she decided that it was time to go. Tiarnan, though, was yet abuzz with energy.

It was in seeing him do this that Syahidah came to realize quite just how much stamina is hidden away inside Tiarnan's little body.

Sometimes, it seems, athletes come in small packages.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Changi Airport, Singapore: Hafiz's flight.

The other day, my wife went to the airport, with Tiarnan, nineteen months, to see Hafiz Osman, her brother, off to the Istanbul Contemporary Art Biennial, to which he has been invited, as an artist.

Tiarnan was most enthused by the airport, not having seen one before and was quite taken by the expanses available to simply just run and play.

His attention was, however, drawn by a mysterious doorway off to one side of the concourse. It was a strange place that had a power over people that he could not understand. From all over the airport, men would hurry to this doorway and disappear within. They would reappear some time later and walk out more slowly, in a rather more relaxed fashion. For him, this was most interesting: why were those men hurrying there? What happened beyond that magic rectangle in the wall? Why were the men different on leaving, compared to their attitude on entering? One can imagine all these questions going through his head.

He pointed towards the doorway and said to his mother, Syahidah: "Just go! I want to see!"

He was duly taken within and looked around. Reality did not meet expectation, yet he peered around curiously.

Upon leaving, his mother said: "It's just a toilet."

"Just a toilet..." he echoed, satisfied, at having seen it, but a little disappointed that the secret power he had noted was not as great as he had supposed.

Hearing this tale made me feel how even the littlest thing may seem magical to a very young child. They know so little of the world, that so much of it appears wonderfully mysterious - even a toilet in Changi Airport can seem strange and interesting when you are nineteen months old.

It is rather sad to think that, by the time they are adults most of these wondering children will have lost all sense of wonder and so nothing will seem magical anymore. I hope it doesn't happen to any of my children. Let them wonder, at life - lifelong.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

IQ and the Politics of Science

IQ has been a contentious issue since it was developed in the early part of the twentieth century. The most common reason for contention has been the connection between IQ and genetics.

One of the early pioneers on the matter of IQ and genetics was Cyril Burt. You may have heard of him - and what you may have heard may not be entirely flattering - yet...have you been misinformed?

Cyril Burt was born in 1883 and his heyday was in the 1920s and 1930s. His work pioneered not only the question of genetics in IQ but also the sociological factors involved in poor school achievement and his work called attention to such matters, which seem obvious now, of poverty, overcrowding and the like. At the time, however, it was fresh work.

This is not why he is most famous, however - or infamous, for that matter. His work on the heritability of IQ is what led him into trouble. He published some studies of twins raised apart - and therefore growing up in different environments. If IQ was environmentally determined, one would expect that there would be little correlation, therefore, between their IQs. What his results showed, however, was that the correlation was very high indeed: a correlation of 0.77, in which a correlation of 1.0 would indicate identity of IQs.

This result caused an outcry among his environmental (nurture type) opponents. They were just not willing to accept his results. In due course, in 1973, Leon Kamin, then at Princeton University, cried "fraud" and stated that the fact that his correlation remained unchanged despite moving from 15 pairs of twins in 1943 to 53 pairs of twins in 1966, remaining at 0.77, once rounded off, indicated that the results were fraudulent.

The whole world joined in the ambush with even newspapers as eminent as The Sunday Times in England calling him a fraud and pounding his reputation into the ground. Cyril Burt was destroyed by this.

One curious accusation levelled against Cyril Burt was that his two assistants, referred to in his work, never existed. The charge was that he made up his assistants to lend corroboration to his work - which they also said he made up.

However, in 1989, a re-examination of the case against Burt by Robert B. Johnson, showed that the "evidence" was ill-founded and that it was most certainly not proven.

Tellingly, there have since been five other studies of monozygotic twins raised apart. The average IQ correlation shown in these studies is 0.75. This is remarkably similar to Burt's "fraudulent" results of 0.77. For a "fraud" his work is spot-on: how strange.

The worst part of this case though was what happened immediately after Cyril Burt's death in 1971. Liam Hudson, one of Cyril Burt's greatest enemies and most outspoken opponents rushed around to his house. Now, do you think he went there to express his sorrow? No. I am afraid not. He went there to instruct Burt's secretary-housekeeper to burn Burt's data and papers - which she duly did. Liam Hudson, Burt's opponent, personally oversaw the destruction of as much of Burt's lifework as he could.

This act appals me as much as the burning of the Library of Alexandria by the ignorant Romans.
The question is: why wasn't Liam Hudson sentenced to life in prison? He should have been for destroying the scientific work of a lifetime - but, as far as I am aware, nothing happened to him at all. He should still be in prison - but he never set foot in the place.

The other question is: why would Liam Hudson destroy Burt's work? If he genuinely believed Burt to be wrong about the hereditability of IQ, as he said, publicly, what would he have to fear from Burt's data? Clearly, though he spoke against it, he believed that Burt's data was correct and that IQ was highly heritable - otherwise he would have no motive to destroy the data set laboriously collected over a lifetime. The whole matter is absolutely shameful.

As for those mysterious "non-existent" assistants, both were later located. However, no newspaper, that I know of, published an apology for their accusations that these two people had been nothing but fiction.

This whole case tells us much of the danger of politics infecting science. Science should be pursued for the truth - whatever that is. No-one should try to impose the answer they want onto the world - or the data. Burt's opponents strongly believed that environment was all. Yet, Burt's studies showed IQ to be almost entirely hereditary. Instead of performing experiments of their own to investigate the matter - they set about with ad hominem attacks - to destroy his reputation and then, upon his death, one of them destroyed his lifework and data.

Politics should have no part in science. That which is not purely scientific should not be considered - for when it is, the truth is murdered.

Ultimately, Burt's conclusions have been verified by five other independent studies which all came to the exact same conclusion he had. There seems to be little mileage, therefore, in the idea that he was nothing but a fraud. He had, after all, stated the right answer.

So, the next time you see a scientist - or other seeker of the truth - being publicly vilified, look at who is doing the accusing - and ask why? Is it science or politics that drives them? If it is the latter, then you should have a pretty good idea of where the truth actually lies.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The birth of scepticism

The very young do not doubt, but, at some point, the first signs of scepticism creep into their minds. Ainan, 7, has already past that point.

Yesterday, Ainan came to me with a question: "Daddy, do you believe everything you read in the newspapers?"

"No, I don't. Sometimes they get the facts wrong."

"Me neither.", he began, more sure of himself now that he had found a fellow non-believer in the truth of all newspaper articles.

"You see, there is this girl, in the newspaper...", he began, quickly and quietly, in a rapid explanation of what he doubted and why.

The particular story is unimportant. What is important here is that he has begun to assert the primacy of his own judgments over the reports of others. To him, a news story is not to be accepted without question: it is to be judged against an internal set of criteria to determine its likelihood of truth.

Perhaps this is part of the process of becoming a scientist: the forming of independent opinions as to the truth of matters; the testing of information against what one knows and understands as well as, where it applies, experimentally.

I do not know when he formed this idea that newspapers were not to be trusted without examination. This is the first time he has mentioned this view to me - so it might have been resident in him for some time. It is, however, further evidence that the tendency to think for himself, in matters of science, has become more generalized: he is thinking for himself, in all areas - even in the simple reading of a newspaper.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)